A Legend - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

A Legend



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
I’ve lived and breathed Jackie Chan since I was probably 9 years old. I grew up watching almost everything out of Hong Kong in the 90s, and then as I got older, I delved into Chan’s 60s and 70s era careers as well. Needless to say, I’ve been a rabid supporter of the man’s works for the better part of 35 years. Now over the last 10 years (ish), Chan’s career has naturally been in a downward spiral, and it’s not hard to see why. The man is 70 years old, has put out 153 films in his lifetime, and semi-retired around 8 or 9 years ago. However, he’s still starred in a few films over the last decade, and usually, most of them have been pretty painful (especially compared to the former 40 years of his career). But, when you add director Stanley Ton (Rumble in the Bronx, Supercop, Supercop II, First Strike) I was IMMEDIATELY interested in A Legend. Tong has been around as long as Jackie has almost, having risen up the ranks as a stunt guy in Hong Kong, to actor, to starting his own production company for action films. I mean, his latest works with Chan haven’t been AWESOME (Vanguard wasn’t bad, but his last decent film was 2005’s The Myth), but they were serviceable. Unfortunately, it seems that both men have sort of faltered a bit, as A Legend turns out to be a fairly formulaic and disjointed “dual timeline” story with Chan showing up MOSTLY as a CGI de-aged face over another actor’s body.

With all of the jokes about AI being the big bad demon of modern-day filmmaking, I’m starting to wonder if AI had a hand in making 2024’s A Legend with Jackie Chan. I mean, they certainly use it for 50% of the film, creating an AI de-aged face of Jackie Chan on another actor’s body to play a much MUCH younger version of himself. But watching the movie I started to wonder if they were using ChatGPT to write the script too, because it was about as convoluted, and disjointed as me telling ChatGPT to write a movie about kung fu dinosaurs.

The film opens up with what could be considered classic Wuxia overtones. A young lady running from her life from deadly villains, only to run into Zhao Zan (Jackie Chan’s face AI overlaid onto another actor’s body), a general in the Han army. It seems that young Meng Yun (Gülnezer Bextiyar) is running from the Huns who have been raiding the area (she had grown up in their court, after being kidnapped as a child), and her running into Zhao Zan gives her the out she needs. HOWEVER, things rapidly shift to the future where we find out all of these events were the dream of archeologist Fang (Jackie Chan, in his real non-CGI state). However, as time goes on and the dreams go on, the audience soon begins to realize that there is a tie between the dream world and the modern-day world that Chan and his associates understand.

Without getting too into the spoilers, I have to say that the dual storyline method is something I expected from the trailer, but was frustrating, to say the least. It reminded me a bit of Stanley Tong and Jackie Chan’s 2005 film The Myth in that it took two separate (but interconnected) timelines and blurred them a bit. But at the end of the day, it’s kind of a miss for me. Neither timeline is that interesting. The modern day bits with Chan as an archaeologist are the most interesting, with a decent amount of lighthearted comedy surrounding his two apprentices, but the wuxia storyline is (sadly) the most boring. It borrows blatantly from a dozen better period piece films to craft its narrative, and the painfully obvious AI de-aged face on another body just got distracting (I know that China is not known for their CGI in movies, but this is almost “Patrick Steward de-aged in X-Men Origins: Wolverine” level bad).




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Like usual, I can’t seem to find any definitive information on the cameras used for A Legend, nor the resolution of the master struck for it either. But that being said, it’s obviously a digital shoot and one that looks rather good at that. The modern world storyline is very cool and blue-tinged, with crystal clear detail levels and wonderful colors. The Wuxia era timeline is much brighter, with over saturated primary colors (to the point of being visibly hot) and wonderfully shaded period piece costumes. The action can weirdly look a bit juddery, especially in the Wuxia timeline for some reason. I personally think that it’s not an encoding issue but rather a stylistic choice, as it ONLY happens in the Wuxia period piece moments, and looks smooth as silk in the modern day bits. I did notice that the CGI elements tend to look a bit soft, and faces in particular look overly smoothed. I know some of that was to hide the obvious CGI/AI Jackie Chan's de-aged face, but I also noticed it on Chan’s “modern” look as well. I’d guess in an effort to hide his age. But all in all, the picture looks quite pleasing and really appealing with all of the color saturation.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track (well both tracks really, but I definitely prefer the Mandarin one) are powerhouses that give a pleasing action experience. Dialog is good, with crisp vocals in the center channel, and the typical panning effects during action sequences in the mains. However, the surrounds and bass get a REAL workout here, with tons of material thrown at the listener. Bass is powerful and guttural, going low when it needs to, but gleefully living in the mid 20s and 30s with that “hit you in your chest” type of thump during the horseback cavalry charges. Nathan Wang’s score flows all around and generally gives the entire sonic experience a bit of a light and airy feel. The audio is probably the best part of the package for me and a delight to home theater buffs.











Extras:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score:
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Overall, this was a fairly forgettable piece of action from Chan and Tong both. I WANTED to like it due to the fact that I love Stanley Tong’s films, and Jackie is an action god. But whether it’s age, lack of creativity, or simply being under the thumb of mainland China, A Legend just wasn’t that great. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, though. But the minimal extras and the rather bland film leaves me from recommending it as anything more than a Saturday afternoon rental when you’re home alone.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jackie Chan, Gülnezer Bextiyar, Yixing Zhang
Directed by: Stanley Tong
Written by: Stanley Tong
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Mandarin DTS-HD MA 5.1, English, Mandarin DD 2.0
Subtitles: English, French
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 129 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: January 21st, 2025

Recommendation: LOW Rental